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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently